Getting bogged down in details while running D&D? Is boring stuff sucking up all your RPG session time?
These things happen occasionally in Dungeon and Dragons and other tabletop role-playing games. But it doesn’t have to. There are strategies game masters and dungeon masters can use to skip the boring stuff or to make it fun.
If something is boring, skip it
If something is boring then skip it. In a role-playing game, we do not need to narrate every moment of the characters’ day. Of course, all DMs and GMs know this about certain activities like long meal breaks or restroom breaks.
However, sometimes we get pulled into a spiral of narrating walking through corridors without description, conflict, or adding anything to the story. We are seemingly counting the steps between each booth in the marketplace. Or we have characters wake up and the GM says, “What do you want to do?” The player thinks, “Well, Gormquil the Slayer of Worlds would wash his face and fry up some bacon…”
Don’t do it. It’s boring. Skip it and get to the good stuff. But skip it how?
The Cut
We’ve all seen movies and TV shows and the most common editing technique is the “cut.” The filmmakers can take us from different rooms to different cities or to different planets simply by a cut. Use the cut while you are running D&D.
The player characters at the Apothecary shop discover they need to go to the blacksmith shop. Don’t roleplay them walking to the blacksmith shop. Just cut and have them pop right into the blacksmith shop. Walking there would be boring unless they are attacked or learn some story clue on the way.
If you or your players don’t like something, skip it
If you don’t like something or your players don’t like something, skip it. Don’t like scenes of sex or extreme violence? Don’t like torture or long journeys or hunting for food? Skip them.
Fade to Black
To use another filmmaking term fade to black. Your session reaches a point where you don’t want to go simply fade to black. Don’t describe the scene let the players’ imaginations do that work and you move along.
This has two benefits. First, you skip something you find boring or distasteful. Second, your players will probably imagine the scene more vividly than you would have described it.
Make Boring Stuff Fun
All of that said another strategy for dungeon masters is to make the boring stuff fun. This of course is more challenging than simply cutting out the boring stuff, but the results can be quite memorable.
Turn boring into fun
To continue the situation from the section above. Your players discover at the Apothecary shop they need to get information at the blacksmith shop. Walking to the blacksmith shop is boring so spice it up. Someone is following them. An orphan attempts to pickpocket one of the characters. An NPC appears and tells the party not to go to that blacksmith shop.
These kinds of random encounters along the way add a bit of excitement to something that otherwise would be boring.
Turn a shopping trip into a riot
Shopping is notoriously boring so you can skip it. Or you could turn it into a riot. You could roleplay interesting NPC shopkeepers that keep your players laughing. You could give them little jobs along the way that they need to complete in order to buy things instead of just paying them.
A real riot
You can also literally turn it into a riot and have your players meet some external challenges along the way. The goldsmith guild is protesting against a new influx of silversmiths. The demonstration quickly turns into a fistfight while the characters are trying to buy supplies. The King’s troops publicly arrest a popular shopkeeper causing marketgoers to throw rocks at the troops. Swords are drawn.
Long journeys and long walks
A long journey could be run like a dungeon. A long walk down a seemingly neverending stairway could be enlivened by having it collapse as the characters progress.
Your Imagination
Dungeon masters and game masters are only limited by imagination. Don’t get trapped into thinking most of the session needs to be boring. It can always be skipped or made more fun.